familytreemagazine.com 43French Revolution of 1789 to 1799 sent so many
political refugees to the United States that New
York, Philadelphia and Charleston soon had
French-language newspapers.
From 1820 onward, about 750,000 French
immigrants came to the United States. Emi-
gration from France also spiked after the
revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1852, and follow-
ing the country’s 1871 defeat in the Franco-
Prussian War.
Immigrants to America left from French
ports including Le Havre, Marseille, Cher-
bourg, Bordeaux and Nantes, as well as across
the Channel in England, from Liverpool. Only a
few departing passenger lists (listes des passag-
ers) have survived and are accessible; see <www.
familysearch.org/wiki/en/FranceEmigration
and_Immigration> for details.
You’ll have better luck fi nding French
ancestors in US arrival records, such as those
for Ellis Island <www.libertyellisfoundation.
org/passenger> and Castle Garden <www.
castlegarden.org/searcher.php>. Don’t overlook
other ports, such as Boston <www.sec.state.ma.
us/arc/arcsrch/PassengerManifestSearchContents.
html> and New Orleans <search.ancestry.com/
search/db.aspx?dbid=2860>. Early arrivals can
be found in the database at <search.ancestry.
com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7486> and the free
Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild <www.
immigrantships.net>.
CHERCHEZ SEARCH THE HOME TOWN
In France, as in many European countries,
knowing an ancestor’s place of origin is crucial
to locating relevant records. If US immigration
and naturalization records don’t include that
information, you’ll need to scour home sources
such as letters, old documents and family Bibles,
plus obituaries. Quiz your relatives about where
in France the family came from. For Catholic
families, US churches may have records that
reference an original French parish.
When you have a geographic clue to pursue,
it’s important to understand the jurisdiction-
al map of France. In 1790, the revolutionary
country was reorganized from a variety of
provinces into government units called départe-
ments (departments). Initially 83, the number of
departments has fl uctuated over time, reach-
ing as many as 130 before settling on today’s 96
(plus fi ve externa l units, such a s Ma r t inique a nd
Guadeloupe in the Caribbean). Departments are
often referred to simply by number.
Within each department are many smaller
jurisdictions called communes, which might
range from tiny villages to cities. The major
cities of Paris, Marseille and Lyon are further
divided into arondissements (d i st r ic t or com-
mune). Each arondissement has its own town
hall (mairie), where records were kept. At the
department level, archives are organized by
type, then commune, then chronologically.
To learn more about French departments,
including links to online resources and archives,
see the clickable list at <www.familysearch.org/
wiki/en/France_Genealogy>. For a guide to
department archives and more, break out your
French-English dictionary and visit <www.
archives.ain.fr/n/et-vos-archives/n:355>. For
links to pages about each department and its
records, see <www.francegenweb.org/wiki>.VOILÀ VITAL RECORDS!
French government records of births (nais-
sances), marriages (mariages) and deaths (décès
or morts) began back in 1792 and were kept by
the local commune. Copies of records more than
100 years old are generally also available from
departmental archives, which may be onlineIt’s never been easier to research
your French family history
without having to go to France.
tip
Records from late 1792 through 1805 (the early Napoleonic
era) might have peculiar looking dates. The calendar then
began the year on September 22 and named months for
seasonal characteristics (e.g., Ventôse was February 19 to
March 20, with a name from venteuse meaning “windy”).
And years were counted from the founding of the French
Republic (1792–93). See <www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-
the-two-empires/the-republican-calendar> to convert dates
to the Gregorian calendar.